Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury (left), defends as the Flyers' Jakub Voracek chases the puck during the third period of Saturday's game. The Penguins won 6-4.

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RANDY MILLER

T he old Madison Square Garden was right up the street and Joe Mullen could see it from a window in his childhood home, a fifth-floor West 49th Street apartment in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan.

His dad worked at the Garden as a maintenance worker, and little Joey would go to games there daydreaming of someday playing for the New York Rangers, which seemed about as unrealistic as man walking on the moon for any kid growing up where he did in the 1960s.

Mullen, now a Flyers assistant coach, had a hockey upbringing that was very different from all those generations of Canadian kids who grew up ...